The real achievement in discoveries... is seeing an analogy where no one saw one before... The essence of discovery is that unlikely marriage of cabbages and kings — of previously unrelated frames of reference or universes of discourse — whose union will solve the previously insoluble problem.
Arthur KoestlerIf the creator has a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely would have meant for us to stick it out.
Arthur KoestlerTo sell oneself for thirty pieces of silver is an honest transaction; but to sell oneself to one s own conscience is to abandon mankind.
Arthur KoestlerChemically induced hallucinations, delusions and raptures may be frightening or wonderfully gratifying; in either case they are in the nature of confidence tricks played on one's own nervous system.
Arthur KoestlerIn the social equation, the value of a single life is nil; in the cosmic equation, it is infinite... Not only communism, but any political movement which implicitly relies on purely utilitarian ethics, must become a victim to the same fatal error. It is a fallacy as naïve as a mathematical teaser, and yet its consequences lead straight to Goya's Disasters, to the reign of the guillotine, the torture chambers of the Inquisition, or the cellars of the Lubianka.
Arthur Koestler